BCS theory of driven superconductivity

Abstract

We study the impact of a time-dependent external driving of the lattice phonons in a minimal model of a BCS superconductor. Upon evaluating the driving-induced vertex corrections of the phonon-mediated electron-electron interaction, we show that parametric phonon driving can be used to elevate the critical temperature $T_c$, while a dipolar phonon drive has no effect. We provide simple analytic expressions for the enhancement factor of $T_c$. Furthermore, a mean-field analysis of a nonlinear phonon-phonon interaction also shows that phonon anharmonicities further amplify $T_c$. Our results hold universally for the large class of normal BCS superconductors.